Can Terry McAuliffe govern himself?

So far, almost every external event in the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial race — the federal investigation of a sitting governor and the selection of an over-the-top activist as the GOP lieutenant governor candidate, for starters — has helped Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe.

This weekend, the trajectory of the race may hinge on a different question: Can Terry McAuliffe help himself?

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The irrepressible former Democratic National Committee chairman and his opponent, Republican state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, will meet for their first debate on Saturday at Virginia’s Homestead resort. The event will be an early gauge of whether the two candidates can deliver their messages convincingly (they both want to create jobs) and make their attack lines stick.

For McAuliffe, however, the debate will be a test of more than that. Despite all the breaks their candidate has caught this year, what still keeps Democrats awake at night is chronic uncertainty over whether McAuliffe can rein in his showman’s instincts, hit his marks and present himself as, you know, gubernatorial.

McAuliffe’s friends and allies freely acknowledge that’s not necessarily an easy sell for a man who once waved a bottle of rum around on national television, while clad in a floral shirt, on the day of Puerto Rico’s 2008 Democratic presidential primary. The same expansive personality that helped McAuliffe bank nearly twice as much cash as Cuccinelli last month is also a big fat target for his opponent to bait, prod and attack.

In a sense, the matchup between Cuccinelli and McAuliffe going into the debate is a microcosm of the whole race: a Republican candidate hobbled by his ultra-ideological reputation but confident he can win an off-year campaign on his own terms versus a Democrat with a heck of an electoral opportunity in front of him, who’s still making the often unsteady transition from political fixer-cum-talking head to credible leader.

Former Virginia legislative leader Brian Moran, who tussled with McAuliffe in debates during the 2009 Democratic gubernatorial primary, predicted this weekend would be a “very good indicator” of McAuliffe’s battle-readiness.

When McAuliffe is at his best, Moran said, he’s talking about the “economy, jobs, not making this necessarily about himself but rather his vision for Virginia.”

“He really is a business guy, and an exuberant one at that,” said Democratic strategist Paul Begala, a McAuliffe friend and fellow Clinton-world insider. “Terry is running as a pro-business Democrat like Mark Warner. Cuccinelli is running as a hard-edged social conservative.”

Begala said that McAuliffe has “got his work cut out for him” as a messenger, adding: “He does seem much more disciplined this time around.”

At the very least, his 2013 campaign is more disciplined than his previous effort. Up to this point in the race, the longtime Democratic rainmaker has run a tightly controlled effort, one designed in every way as a rectification of his expensive, over-the-top, consultant-heavy 2009 gubernatorial bid, which ended in a last-place primary finish.

McAuliffe himself is said to be far more focused and goal-oriented in his approach to the race, in his 2013 incarnation. Several extra years of working the Richmond power structure have brought once-skeptical state Democrats squarely into McAuliffe’s cheering section.

But all of that has only gone part of the way to calming Democrats’ Virginia jitters. Even as McAuliffe’s public appearances have been relentlessly on message — often held on out-of-the-way community college campuses and other locales unlikely to attract hordes of media — there’s still simmering concern in the party that in his heart, Terry is still Terry.

That is, the Terry McAuliffe who claimed in his 2009 campaign to have created “over 100,000 jobs.” Or the Terry McAuliffe who’s quoted in the new D.C. narrative “This Town” cracking a prostate-exam joke in the middle of a party.

Democrats plainly broadcast their anxiety about McAuliffe’s debating skills earlier this week, with the Democratic Governors Association releasing a memo furiously downplaying expectations for his performance. Even by contemporary standards of political spin, this was a particularly straightforward effort at lowering the bar.